Nobody Leaves Venice

L-Z

Dedicated to the proposition that wherever you go, a part of you stays in Venice, and you take part of Venice along with you.

When I lived there, I knew quite a few people who shared an attitude like, "If it's not in Venice, I don't need it." They never wanted to move beyond the boundaries of Venice again, and even after physically moving away, many have found that it's not that simple. It's like the song "Hotel California" by the Eagles: You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

Here, in alphabetical order by last name, we have commentary from former residents and current ones too. This page is long - look in the area to the right for a concise list of contributors, and just click to get to that section of the page quickly. Those who are new since the last update are noted as NEW.

If you are presently or previously a Venetian, send your thoughts to the Nobody Leaves Venice mailbox.

Frank Lett
I lived at 503 Ocean Front Walk aka "A Red Brick Building, Ugly as Hell, in Venice, California ". From 1972-1977 my mother was lived in a drug treatment facility known as Tuum Est, now called the Phoenix House. Despite the circumstances that brought me there, it was the most memorable times in my life. Keep in mind back then people who used drugs were just like ordinary people long removed from the crack-smoking, VCR stealing addicts of today (if the shoe fits...). We sold macrame, candles and had movie night every friday. There were many kids there Billy and Dawn, Damon and Peter, Stevie and Mondo, Denise, Lisa, Odessa and others. We were loved. It was like living with 50 aunts and uncles. Our playground was endless. We never worried about cars. Cars seem to only exist when we were arriving at or leaving what we affectionately called "The House" We spent most of our time walking the boardwalk and talking to the many people who seemed to live there. . I remember watching many of the people you see on TV when they shoot the boardwalk the rollerskating guy with the turban, the midget amputee and his boom box, and an old guy named Ralph. Not sure if he was drunk or retarded, but he was always a laugh. I remember handing bricks to the guy that was laying the floor for the outdoor patio for the cafe next door and asking to sweep out the synagogue ,our other neighbor, for a dollar. I remember the pleasure of feeding the seagulls loaves of stale bread and learned to appreciate sunsets at an early age. It was an amazing place full of adventure. It was like having Disneyland,with all of its characters, right outside your front door.

Bob Lohr
I lived in the "Dogtown" section of south Santa Monica from '82-'87 while I was going to law school (and trying to produce hard rock bands on the side!!). I spent a lot of time hanging around Venice/ Venice Beach approximately in the same time period I think you're writing about. I hadn't been back for 17 years until Xmas-New Year's week, when I brought my wife out to spend a couple of days in Venice. It's still a crazy/wonderful/semi-dangerous place...she was amazed at the whole area, and we're planning our next trip back around the same time this year.

Michael "Windance" Lopuch
I am Mike, the bassist from Windance, a group that played and lived in Venice. I was with them from 1974 through 1976. The group was one of the house bands at Honky Hoagies Handy Hangout otherwise known as the 4H Club. The band had Jeff Golden, flute/sax/clarinet/guitar. I think he is still in Venice. Janie Golden, Jeff's sister, doing sound. She now has a Tai Chi business. Harlan Tissue played harmonica and guitar, and lives in Hawaii with what I believe is a landscaping business. Allen Schneider played violin/piano/guitar - whereabouts unknown. Michael Brooker and Cher and Diane Osbourne helped and provided lots of moral support. Sadly, I have misplaced them all.

I really enjoyed listening to the Canaligators and Severance at Wally Woods' 4H Club. The Club had some of the best original music out there. Absolutely great. I really enjoyed watching Zoom from Severance to see what riffs I could "borrow" from him. Severance had Gregory Hines as a lead singer. Nice guy. Peter Tork, from the Monkees, used to come in and play between our sets.

I was lucky enough to be supported by my girlfriend, and future wife, Estelle "Stelly" Kelly, which allowed me to pursue music. We lived in the Biltmore on Ocean Front Walk as well as an apartment on Rose, about a block from the ocean. We lived up above Cecil, a retired octogenarian farmer from somewhere like Nebraska. He taught me that you should always tighten a nut on a bolt, not the bolt while holding the nut. I still wonder about that.

I had the Chevy van parked on Rose in front of the apartment and was under it on my back performing a repair when I reached for my ratchet, it was gone! Someone pilfered it when I was right there, the rascal. Lots of drugs were floating around then, and it probably went toward some. I also had my van broken into when it was parked in the beach lot. Took ALL my tools, spare tire, and radio. The cops said they hoped I had insurance because they were too busy dealing with robberies and murders than to deal with this, and left. Actually, we did have a couple of acquaintances murdered who invited a person in to stay with them in their bus. Very sad. Left a little one. But, the best part of those years were living next to the Pacific. It gave me a love of salt air, it's daily changes, and just being near it. Hopefully, I'll get to live near the sea again.

I got to visit Venice a few years ago on a trip for work. I was sad to see a strip of tattoo and T-shirt shops lining Ocean Front Walk. When I lived there, I remember veggie stands, health food co-ops, little cafes, and it seemed a bit less touristy. I will admit every weekend was a carnival. I loved that beach at weekdays at about 4 PM in the summer, after it had cleared out. Just gorgeous! I also miss all the great vegetarian food I had the pleasure of feasting on. It's a Venice hold-over for me in that I haven't eaten meat in twenty years.

Lots of good friends, good music, good food, and what can beat whiling away the hours catching ducks in the Venice Canals with a cardboard box, string, a stick and some bread as a lure? Of course we let them go! They would come right back, and we could catch them again! Peace, Mike L. P.S. Is the guy still around who had the silver peace sign inlayed in his front tooth?

Annie Lyons
(Note: this is NOT a first person account, it was written by John D. Shearer) Annie Lyons was one was one of my favorite friends. From England, she was corresponding with a gentleman in Vancouver after the turn of the nineteenth century. They were to be married. She had traveled around Cape Horn, off South America, and was rescued when the ship, heading north, sunk of off Santa Monica and remained there. She lived on the first floor of Josephine Kearney's house on Howland Canal. Annie must have seen me go up and down the alley many times. One day, when I was about 12 years old, she was out and called me over. We visited for about an hour, when I heard my mother calling me for supper. The next time she saw me, she invited me in for cookies and milk. Later she introduced me to tea. She would regale me with stories of England and the early days of Venice. I often recieved little momentos that she recieved from England. One was an English textbook on their history another was a souvenir medal of Queen Elizabeth's coronation.

Mike Males
I lived in Venice in 1972, at 26 Westminster ($65/month), sat on the beach listening to the Swami X, etc.,… wrote dozens of pages of accounts and fiction about it but stuck them in a box and never had the guts to try to publish them.

Rozinkhes Mit Mandlen NEW
(Webslave’s note: This pseudonym is actually the title of a traditional Jewish lullaby. The paragraph was in the Free Venice Beachhead, August 1982 )
Anyway I’ve got some things you can’t exactly take away from me. Oh you could, you could take it all away but for now I’ve got them. A vermilion sunset over the beach, a man playing banjo in the back of a Santa Monica bus, friends around a campfire in a Venice yard. One can’t eat off them but they make the poverty more entertaining. And unemployed and struggling as I am, I think I must be luckier than you, the Big Guys at your one thousand a plate dinners, weighed down somewhere inside with the knowledge that all your clever economic curves will never come together to make this country smile.

Rich Mann
I've been photographing and creating imagery of and about Venice since 1964. In the old days (1972 ) one might have had the privilege to see about 6-10 persons on the Boardwalk all Sunday morning. Usually those were people coming from or going to the Lafayette cafe. Today it's a seaside circus of persons eager to see or be seen by it all! an eclectic assortment of humanity!
Currently I have been sorting and scanning through 6,000 negatives that have been cigar boxed and unpublished to get ready for a digital archive that will be available to be viewed by anyone that requests photographs of my imagery taken between 1972-1990. I have produced a 28-minute VHS film of stills and some live action, similar in title to the book I authored in 1983 titled North Beach, 90291 Rich Mann in Venice. It contains the imagery of the North Venice Beach Boardwalk that still remains non-commercialized and unexposed today.
Venice has always been a repetition of evolving returns ever since I've been visiting in 1957 after taking the nickle tram from Santa Monica's Muscle Beach to play on the rings and gymnastic apparatus in the sand pit, and living here since 1968.

Vaughn Marlowe
I came to Venice in March 1960, sleeping in my car the first night in a parking lot near Windward. I was 28 years old and all I owned was a Ford Galaxie and a few boxes of clothes and books in its trunk, among them a copy of Larry Lipton's The Holy Barbarians, which is how I ended up in Venice, lured by its Siren call of freedom and bohemia. The movie A Touch of Evil is a great source for Holy Barbarian Venice; it's exactly as it was when I arrived 18 months after the movie was made.
I spent the next day wandering the beach, riding the jitneys, and soaking up sunshine. That night I wandered into the Gas House and listened to the homeless poet Clare Horner read from his eccentric volume, "Don't step On The Bacon, Man." It was unlike any "poetry" I had ever heard and nothing in my formal education prepared me for it. After another night in my car I found a room and began a sojourn that lasted five consecutive summers, although I often spent the winters elsewhere.
In 1963 I opened the "On The Beach Bookstore" at #5 Dudley Avenue, next to the Venice West Café. I wasn't in Venice when the police closed both places, having given up the bookstore to Bratton; but if they thought we were bad for Venice, they must have missed our beatnik ways when the late 60s and 70s happened. We were downright respectable compared to psychedelic youth and its music. Incidentally, the term "hippie" was coined by beatniks — which itself was coined by "San Francisco Chronicle" columnist Herb Caen — as a derogatory term for a beatnik wannabe. As I heard it in 1965: "How can you tell a beatnik from a hippie?" Answer: "The beatnik is the one carrying a book." I met a lot of strange and wonderful people during my years in Venice. It seemed it was a world of cultural extremes, and I shall never forget it. It is like a friend said about war: "I wouldn't take a million dollars for the experience — or do it again for two."
The Matchbox was a lesbian bar at night that welcomed beat artists during the day. The owner/bartender, a great tough old dyke whose name I forget, threw a gay man out one morning for "cruising" me while I was having my hangover breakfast of tomato juice and beer. I lived just around the corner on Speedway. The market was a family business that was also a "numbers" book, but never when "Mama" was in the store.
Venice in the Snow is my second-favorite Venice painting. The first was a wall on Brooks facing the ocean and was a mirror-like reflection of the beach scene at your back as you stood looking at the mural. Any photo of it (and none exists that I know of) would literally be just half of the picture.
At 75 I am a relic. The only old Venice hand I have stayed in touch with is the great silkscreen artist Earl Newman, now my Oregon neighbor, sort of, whose gallery/studio was two doors north of the Gas House and became a contentious issue with his landlord, who objected to Earl having painted a "communist peace symbol" on the building's outer wall.
I think Shanna, Frankie Rios, Bill Fleeman and I are the only ones still alive from that era, and we didn't even know each other except by sight and, possibly, reputation.
Now we are interviewed and get a chance to write history, as survivors always do. I wish I had some old scores to settle, but I don't. Venice treated me kindly and it was filled with holy angels and of all descriptions and degrees.

Pat Merryman
My first apartment in Venice ('70) was a third floor efficiency on Breeze Ave - two houses from the beach - $165/mo. Last apt. ('79) was on Pacific Ave. - 2 bedroom facing a one block walkstreet to beach - $325/mo. (Jane/Tom/Rent Control!) It was a great time to be alive! I still keep in touch with many wonderful friends from those amazing years.

Peggy Mims-Sledge
My father moved our family to Venice California all the way from Mississippi in 1959. I was 4 years old and there were 4 other siblings 5,7,9,11. We arrived on a Greyhound bus. We landed at my Aunt Corene’s house on Westminster between 5th and 6th Street and that is where we stayed for the next 2-3 years. My memories are: Trolley rides on the beach, the Helms Doughnut truck coming through in the mornings, the milkman delivering, the watermelon man as well as the fruit truck in the summer. Long lazy days at the beach during summer break. The fog coming in in the afternoons. Laying in bed and listening to the sound of the foghorn at night. As I got older I participated in the skating revolution on the beach. I would come home from work, don my skates and head for the beach. Weekends were spent biking. I even remember when the famous guitar guy arrived on the beach! Walking everywhere! From Rose Avenue (my brother and I would get free sourdough bread freshly baked – ummmmm) on the north to Palms (walking home from Mark Twain or Venice High School) on the south – from Lincoln Blvd. on the east (Grant’s dept. store, Thrifty’s Ice Cream) to Main Street on the west. Venice also has a rich history in the churches which have survived and the generation of families that attend New Bethel on Brooks Avenue, Friendship on Broadway, Bible Tabernacle, First Baptist on Westminster and 7th Avenue, and my own church, Second Community Baptist Church on Abbot Kinney (formerly Washington Avenue.) I attended Westminster Elementary School as well as Broadway Elementary. What I remember most about Venice is the family feeling of it. I married in 1982 and moved to my husband’s home in Inglewood but I still attend my church on Westminster and my aunt, a sister and my father still live in Venice. I make sure I get a taste of Venice every weekend! Viva La Venice.

Elizabeth Minelian
I moved to VENICE in 1973, I was 10 years old and fell in love. The boardwalk was bare, all except the skate ramps built by local Venice Kids at the Venice Pavilion. It was much more desirable to just walk down to the Pavilion instead of Mark Twain Jr. High. Oh yes we defiantly got into some trouble around here. So much that I had to go away for a minute the whole time I was gone I would just think of how bad I wanted to be home. I still live in Venice at the Property I grew up on. I am a Venetian and plan on dying one, I can't see moving anytime soon. I'm 44 now and my teenagers are repeating history here in VENICE at the newer skate ramps at the beach and walking down the same Electric Avenue, some things never change...I just wish it wasn't so crowded:-( I love you Venice!

Ralph Morin
I spent a LOT of time at the Venice West during the time that John and Anna had it. We made a short black and white documentary of a guy named ERIK during that time. I lived in Venice from 1960 until 1991. I still have copies of Claire Horner's books that he wrote while he was there. Perhaps you (or somebody) might be interested.

Butch Mudbone
i played the boardwalk for years, did the Midnight Special with the Canaligators, had my own group performing at the Starboard Attitude on Redondo pier (4 years) played with John Lee Hooker, Bo Diddley and Albert KIng, opened up for James Brown and Jr Walker, and did 2 tours with the Johnny Otis Revue. i moved to Memphis in 1990, where i now reside. Uncle Bill Crawford was a mentor and was like a father to me. i had a lot of history in Venice, from the Cheetah pier to Sam Taylor...i been wanting to come back to Venice, but circumstances been blockin me out, but the opportunity may come again, hopefully.

Mike Murphy
Lived at on carroll canal (231) this was in the late 40s and 50s. Had a great time , we would sit on the pipe that ran over the bridge and eat ice cream and swim in the canal. We would take the barge that they kept down on Linnie Canal and ride it around all the canals (The city used the barge to clean the canals of algae, two guys would use pitch forks) Attended St. Marks, Mark Twain Jr., and Venice High. Venice will always remain my home.

Stuart Z. Perkoff
city of venice, my city, city within a city i do not know or love.....

Gilles Premel
peace too all my brothersand sisters in the community of where we were..........mari jane kwan where are you????? jaya founders?????, bob activists.............and the strong gay pride community...........my name is gilles premel Aarone's son on grand canal venice 1970.
where are you all write me i feel lonely..........2403 grand canal son of aarone premel jaya founder and many active projects the park, the painting on the liquor store, fight with the police,and music; the metafaser, boarding with david kwan mari jane's son ...........;conga drumming and poetry..........and the canal music and arts festival with all the the painters and spray painters and home grown not even planted growing by mistake......surfing in the canals, the flea market when it was a flea market......terry playing here 4 congas in front of the pavilon .......... jaya artist and feminist art movement.........it was all music in my head. premelp@yahoo.fr

Joy Richter
I visited Venice Beach in January of 1993, the first and only time I have been there. I imagine that's not the most exciting time of year to visit, but I was with a friend and this was the only time I had. I bought two tight, spandex dresses; one black and one red, for $10 each. I looked really good in them---back when I was 20 pounds lighter. What I remember the most was a woman sitting on a bench, eating pizza and crying at the same time. My friend and I thought it was funny.

Linda Schram-Williams
..what about: Earth Rose? (once Earth Books and Gallery on Ocean Park & 2nd)--got shut down for smut and relocated to Ocean Front Walk and Rose Ave. on the corner..proprietor, Steve Richmond, dope fiend meat poet pal of Bukowski? ...Harold Norse & Kenneth Patchen? ..the Cheetah Club? ..the Free Press birthday party on the beach by POP's old burnt out pier? ..the Magic Theater head shop on Pacific by the first old Gold's Gym in the alley where Arnie worked out? ..the West Washington studios off Venice Blvd--Tim Buckley & family lived upstairs after the dance studio moved out ..and on and on and on..
What they say is true--if you remember, you weren't REALLY THERE...i do remember some, tho', through the fog...

Randall Sears
I think it would be nice to wall the whole place off. Sort of like an edgy "Grove at Fairfax" or perhaps a scuffed-toe, quasi-DisneyLand. Grey -haired hippies, living in rent-controlled apartments, (with two non-running Volkswagon beetles in the front yard) would sell tickets at the two main gates, California Ave. and Rose Ave. Once inside, visitors would marvel at the wealth of entertainment that would await them. Children would squeal with glee as they rode "Mr.Homeless Toad's Wild Ride." Instead of little cars, the kiddies would zoom around in the numerous smoke belching itinerant campers that currently line the streets. Discarded shopping carts would be available for those who simultaneously hate meat and/or the internal combustion engine. Parents would delight in busying themselves on "Ain't enough Space Mountain." Here they would don the uniform of their favorite self-important architect (weird yellow glasses, mock turtle necks, etc.) and drive bulldozers through the last of the low income housing projects screaming "Set-backs, we don't need no stinkin' set-backs!." The ride finishes with actual architects, pleading on plasma screens, "to let them clad everyone's houses in galvanized sheet metal." Proceeding to Sixth and Indiana (or thereabouts), teens would thrill to the wonders of the "Haunted Crack Mansion." Ushers in blue-hooded sweatshirts, with requisite pistol bulges, would stand on the corners taking tickets and glowering at soccer-moms entombed in lumbering SUV's. Wizened old grandmothers could finally, truthfully say that "my grand kids ain't sellin' no drugs!" The day would end with the "YuppieLand Electric Main Street Parade." An army of Armani A/X-clad, latte-swilling hipsters would march down Abbot Kinney Blvd, swatting each other's asses with yoga mats and checking e-mails on their "black-berries." However, the street would be devoid of music, due to the effects of the "white cord of imbecility" or i-pod-ism. The parade finally ends, the crowds disperse and all that will be heard is the distant sounds of terror from an underground Realtor "caged death matches." How do I get on the Centennial committee?

John D. Shearer
It's been 50 years since I left Venice. But I still remember the city I grew up in. My father went to California in 1942, and brought us out after finding work at the Douglas Aircraft Company in Santa Monica. It was a good job and building airplanes kept him out of World War II. He rented a house at 413 Howland Canal, then we moved to 28 Clubhouse Walkway. I started kindergarten at Westminister School there. One of my earliest memories is from living on Clubhouse Walk: a supposed Japanese aircraft was shot down and the Army set up a machine gun nest in the covered benches near the end of Clubhouse.
We moved to Redondo Beach in 1943, and I started kindergarten again. We returned to Venice in 1944 and my father bought the house at 440 Linnie Canal, where we lived and I attended Nightingale Elementary, starting kindergarten the third time, Mark Twain Junior High and Venice High School. I remember Hopalong Cassidy's Hoppyland and the Venice and Ocean Park Pier before it became POP Pier; the beach and its extension by sand from the building of the Hyperion Plant. The filling in of the last section of Grand Canal north of Venice Blvd.; riding the red cars of the Pacific Electric Railroad. They were discontinued just as I was to start Mark Twain Junior High. Also the barrage balloons set up in Lincoln Blvd and Ocean Park. Being dismissed from school on VJ Day. Spending summer days at the beach and building rafts and swimming in the canals. We kids weren't too smart, the canals were not a good place to swim.
In 1950 it snowed on Venice and the canals one night. It snowed during the night, about an inch, and by noon it was melted away. There was enough snow to have a small snowball fight. I remember crying to my mom that the Clayton kids, who lived behind us on Howland Canal, were using up all our snow. My Mother learned how to make her first tacos from Mrs. Martinez, who lived on Grand Canal. They are still my favorite food.
There were few children on the canals in those days. One of the few was my best friend Roger Miller. Other friends were Howard McNary, Robert Jensen, Dallas Eichstedt and John Garbish; none of these lived on the canals. At this time most of the inhabitants of the canals were older couples whose children had left home. Drugs and hippies would come later.
My 10th birthday was important to me. My father bought me my first bike and I was able to get around town, Ocean Park and Santa Monica. When I lived there the bridge over Eastern Canal had horizontal beams across the to from end to end supported by square pillars made from the cement blocks on each side. We used to think it was fun to take turns riding our bikes over the bridge. We also used to race our bikes over the four car bridges. There used to be a market across from the trolley tracks at the north end of Dell Avenue. I think it's name was Arden’s Market. Later I got a black English bike, and my brothers and I decided to ride our bikes to Topanga. We got a few miles north of Malibu on the coast highway and turned around. One summer I got a job at the Venice library, mostly shelving books. I always loved the beach and spent a lot of time there. This helped me to decide to later join the Navy.

Sharyn Shipley
Once more for the tattoo! My favorite time was living on the canals and sharing adventures, music and metaphaser with Rick Sinatra. Met and married and had my daughters there. Walked everywhere. Learned to build a sand castle that spread for blocks and incorporated every found object on the sand. Learned to make mouth watering brownies. I remember things that make me blush when I recall them. Grinning and grateful. That's me and Venice.

Jennifer Smith
I grew up in Venice...I just moved away in 1999 after finishing my MA at UCLA....I used to take the Blue Bus to school every day. I would drink coffee and watch Venice go by and feel euphoric and lucky to be living in such a beautiful place with such incredible people. Your book really validated a lot of feelings about my relationship with Venice which are so hard to express to others. My frustration with the gentrification, Venice Art Walk, real estate prices (all one thing?). My father is trying hard to "keep it real" on Rialto - counterculture posters, beads, slightly unkept yard, house sort of spilling out into the street. It is discouraging to see 3 houses demolished on Rialto just this year to make way for huge stucco boxes. Now, when I go for a visit, I feel a bit depressed - like it isn't home any more, like I don't really belong there.

Keith Snyder (in New York)
I'd rather be back home in Venice, California

Patricia Nunez Souder
I moved to Venice from Santa Monica when I was 7 years old. I went to Westminster Elementary School. Many times after school we would sneak across the street to the Deany's and listen to the music on the juke box, a hang out for the teen's. The stores and houses that were on Washington, are now just a fond memory. You never had to leave Venice because you had the local drug stores, the Maytag man, furniture store, of course the Pet Store on the corner of Washington and California. We had a local neighborhood store that sold the best pickles that were in this big barrel. I lived 1 block from Venice Blvd and 3 blocks from the beach. In the summer time we would go and play at the beach which was our back yard. As long as we were home before dark it was ok. We had Beatniks & Poetry Coffee hangout & the hotdog stand We had the drug store at Windward circle, Newbury's five & dime where we bought our candy to head to Venice Pier to go fishing, what more did a kid need in those days. When I turned twelve we moved to the Lincoln Apts and I began my junior year at Mark Twain & graduated from Venice High in 1968. I moved out of the area for a while when married but was at Venice Beach all the time, taking my kids to the beach during winter, spring, summer or fall. Once a Venetian the beach is in the blood. I since have moved from Venice to Chatsworth. I left my heart & soul there to another life, but I will never leave my love for Venice.

Moe Stavnezer
I was very involved in Venice during the 70s and 80s and, to some extent, remain involved though I moved to San Gabriel a couple years ago. I've made a proposal to UCLA to conduct an oral history of Venice/Santa Monica activists for those decades. I had more than a hundred articles in the Free Venice Beachhead. I'd like to publish, in some form, a collection of photos of Venice murals. (There is also piece called Reminiscences, written especially for the Centennial edition of the Beachhead)

Bob Tadlock
Back in the early 80's I lived up in the San Fernando Valley and used to go down to west Washington Blvd to the Sunset Saloon right on the beach. Was a guy named Slavin' David who used to play there sometimes midweek but usually Friday or Saturday nights. David was lead singer and had a good blues band. I believe he said he flipped burgers at McDonald’s locally during the days. I remember a big black guy who had a bandolier of harmonicas around his waist and he blew a really mean harp. Always standing room only and usually a bunch was outside listening to the music and having a blast too. One old old gal by the name of Sally (homeless) used to be there most of the time later on in the evenings and we'd try to sneak her out a drink if possible. God those were fun days. Well , time moves on, I moved to Orange County years ago, and finally moved out of state.

Amber Tamblyn
We often had bonfires in the courtyard of our apartment complex; everybody there were good friends who brought food, helped poetry readings and played music all night long.

Paul Tanck
Rialto has gained local notoriety each Halloween as the western block is closed off and all the residents go totally wild decorating their places and putting on circus-like presentations to scare the little kids. And there are plenty. Each year I'd say we get 300-400 trick or treaters, of which I can usually get 2 or 3 to cry when they dare enter out haunted mansion featuring the ever-popular "wall of fire." It's a great time for all, with neighbors hosting wild parties late into the night. It has definitely become my favorite holiday.

Maria Rosa Tarantino
I am just a tourist (sigh), I don't live in Venice. I am from Italy, visited Venice on February 25, 2005. It is so particular, original, strange and beautiful... actually I live in san Diego California and I really hope to come to visit again because it was fun!

Sam Taylor
I lived and played around Venice for thirteen years. Nobody touched my band in the 70s - A Band Called Sam. Sometimes I miss Venice so bad it’s painful. I know it’s a lot different now but in my day, Venice was the place to be. I’m still playing and singing my tail off. Headed for the Netherlands at the end of September (2006), I’m sure there’s someone there that remembers the "Bluesman." This note came in November 2006: Venice is such a part of my life I would love to play there again while I still have on my rockin' shoes. Sam Taylor - bluzmansam (at) aol.com

Kimberly Theisen (Dragonfly)
Years of residence: 1969-1978 or 79-ish. My old haunts were mostly Thornton (33 1/2 and Thornton towers) Ozone, Pacific Ave., and the Canals. Loved those bongos and dancing to them!! Loved when Venice was a nude beach for a while!! Loved roller skating to disco down by the pavilion, loved the murals and funky clothes and the jugglers tarot readers and over all amazing group of people that were around at that time!!

Philomene Long Thomas
Even now I prefer to live among the poets, saints and mad ones of Venice West. I know no other way but to strip and leap naked into the Holy Fires.

Tom Troccoli
I had my own bands that recorded for SST Records in the 1980s. In my own solo band, I was ALWAYS introduced as being "direct from Venice California." I did some recording at Radio Tokyo, gigged the Taurus, lived on Ozone, smoked my first joint in 1969 under the P.O.P. pier. My family moved to Samo when I was 13 in early 1969. What a time for Venice! Scary and adventurous for any teenager. Hopping on the back of the boardwalk trams to avoid paying the dime. Exploring the mostly abandoned P.O.P. pier. Checking out the myriad 'hippie' scenes. The times of my life... .

Audrey Webb
I came of age in Venice and those six years influenced the rest of my life. I miss the freedom of walking down the oceanfront walk in 1967 and passing through so many communities - hearing Yiddish spoken and Marty Rosen organizing folks at the temple, Anna Haag selling her wonderful jewelry, walking along the Ocean Front Walk with my friend, May Michel, who always said "this is the best part of the day" regardless of what time it was; the dogs that would disappear the moment the dogcatchers arrived and the wonderful, never to taste again, German pancakes at the German Restuarant; Tuum Est the alternative to Synanon and the newspaper I worked on, "The Source" that attempted to reflect the Oakwood community where I lived for six years.
There was the day we were protesting the Vietnam War and some Klu Klux Klan folks arrived in a bus from ?????? we chased them down Westminster and soon they were running back to their bus with a whole community chasing them. There was also the day that our wonderful diverse community went to City Hall to protest the Master Plan that had been proposed for Venice. We were changing the world, attempting to eradicate racism (at least locally). I worked with Bob Castile in a War on Poverty Program and then worked at the Neighborhood Youth Association where I learned firsthand about the attempts to undermine community activists by the police of the time.
I met the most progressive teacher in the community, Myrna Oshrin, who was teaching "Black History" before there was a school program for it and I met a wonderful eight year old boy, named SunnyMan, who taught me as much as I may have taught him. I met a wonderful elder while knocking on doors to register people to vote. He lived in the Oakwood community and his house was filled with carvings of gondolas and canals. He turned out to be Abbott Kinney's chauffeur and Mr. Kinney left him his house when he died. I also experienced infiltrating the "Venice Civic Union" trying to pose as a right wing conservative, at the encouragement of Curtis Rossiter who was sure they were connected to the Klan. All this while trying to work my way through school at Cal State Los Angeles. Those were the days, again, when we thought we were changing the world and it has never felt as good since that time.
I am now a Social Worker who lives in the Bay Area and belongs to a group called "Therapists for Peace and Justice". I will work madly in the 2008 election to try to get that old feeling back----the conga drums playing to the sun setting on the Venice Beach.

Susan Weinberg - ( Free Venice Beachhead Jan. 1980)
I love you Venice!
I met you in the summer of 1974, that crazy summer of the nude beach, and fell instantly in love with the freedom of the place. You let me be, let me find myself!
When not in my studio, I spent long hours on the Walk, drinking in the history that just pours from the walls of the old buildings and feeling the vibrations of its people.
Venice is magic! My drawings are magic! They almost draw themselves.
These drawings are part of a series that I call my "Coloring Book" series. They are done simply, easily, with the use of the thousands of photographs I have lovingly taken during my years in Venice.
They were born out of the need to say: "Thank you, Venice," in the most direct, unpretentious way possible. I want to show My Venice, the Venice of people all existing in their own spaces, dong their own thing - all an expression of love and joy and of a faith that the world can be a place of peace and harmony.
My drawings cover the time period from 1974 to 1980. Venice has changed in that period of time - it always is in a state of change. So many people need Venice we must not be too selfish with her.
I have moved away from Venice now, down the Walk to Santa Monica. Now I must skate down to Venice, through the no-man’s land separating the two cities, to the little island I feel is my home.
Today everybody is skating - tomorrow it will be something else. But Venice will always be for the people.
If joy is a sign of the presence of God, then God resides in Venice. The God-force, the Creative Force, will never let its people down.
So, thank you again Venice, for being here.
Here’s looking forward to the ‘80s. May the Spirit of Venice always endure.

Jack K. Wilborn
I lived there from about 1961 to 1967, just loved it! I used to photograph EVERYTHING + the beaches!!

Tom Zevin
First home, a brick apartment building on Westminster. We lived on Rose, Brooks, and Breeze. Short moves to Marco Place off Lincoln, Matteson in Mar Vista. Mom moved a lot so I attended Broadway, Westminster, Sunset, Grandview, and Roosevelt which switched to the name Couer D'lene or something like that. I miss Saucy Dog, the very brief nude beach (at 13, I was handed a flyer by a nude from below the waist man). a quiet beach and boardwalk before the storefronts, Nick’s market at Wavecrest, (he let me label cans for .25 an hour), our belief that the building at 2 Breeze was haunted, the Krishna parades, jumping the back of the tram, sneaking into the long-closed POP and watching it burn every once in a while, and also marveling when the rollercoaster fell over all on its own one day, the swings at the end of our block, the kiddie park at Windward near the Pavilion where I have one of my few memories of my Dad pushing me on the swings, my first skates from Cheapskates, being able to hear my Mom call me home from 26 Breeze when I was 3 blocks away, back when it was safe to be out after dark. To look back and remember hearing the waves at night.
I miss Venice, I miss my Mom who died on Rose Avenue, the same place she moved back to after trying a stint back in her hometown of Baraboo, Wisconsin. I still see it.

A-K

Frank Lett

Bob Lohr

Michael "Windance" Lopuch

Annie Lyons

Mike Males

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